Work Daze

I don’t know if you’ve made your final decision yet, but if you ask me, I
know what I want to be when I come back in my next life. I want to come back
as an employee of SuperGroup Creative Omnimedia.

I understand that the concept of reincarnation does not often figure in the
science of career counseling, but a fellow can dream, can’t he? And if I may
be so bold, may I suggest that once you learn more about this most excellent
company, you, too, will want to send off a resume to SuperGroup SuperQuick.

So, why am I so moo-moo goo-goo for a teeny-tiny web design company in
Atlanta, Georgia? Why do I suggest that you pack up your button-down shirts
and pack in your golden parachute to sign on to Team SuperGroup? It isn’t
because of what they do. It’s because of what they don’t do.

According to a recent article in “The Wall Street Journal,” the inspired
co-finder of the business, Mr. Chris Wallace, has instituted a policy
wherein employees are allowed to fill their down time with whatever
activities they choose. That’s right! Instead of trying to look busy with
worthwhile work pursuits, SuperGroup’s SuperLucky employees have carte
blanche to “pursue their own interests in their downtime, doing just about
whatever they wanted, on the clock.”

Sad to relate, the employees of SuperGroup totally waste their free time
with worthless endeavors like “writing music and building photography and
video skills.” These avocations are not only promoted by the company, but
are used to entice new clients into the Omnimedia web. Like the time the
company was pitching for new business from The Weather Channel, and
convinced their potential client that they could not only turn pixels into
snow storms, but could also write music for the site.

“To prove its abilities, Mr. Wallace presented the Weather Channel with a CD
of employees’ original music – and won the business” Simona Covel of the
Journal reports.

Not only does the company benefit, but employees with a free pass for their
free time also gain new skills to put on their resumes, not to mention a
workplace experience that is truly rare in today’s nose-to-the-grindstone
economy -- an “ego boost.”

According to the boss, Chris Wallace, employees usually spend about an
average of one half-day a week on their personal projects, and only
occasionally have to be reminded that work for their clients comes first.
The only problem, he says, is to “weed out potential hires who seem to
thrive on a more regimented structure.”

As someone who has spent not half-days, but whole half-decades working on
personal projects in the midst of highly regimented organizations, I must
applaud the visionary thinking of SuperGroup’s management. But I am not
convinced that the youthful employees of the company are using their
personal time to the best advantage. Writing music tracks and polishing
Photoshop skills actually sound like work to me. I say – if your boss is
going to open the gate and let you be a free-range employee, why not take
full advantage.

What are top three activities to occupy your free, highly-paid hours at
work? I thought you’d never ask.

Workplace Personal Activity #3 – sleeping.

No longer will you have to glue yourself your Aeron Chair, and prop your
eyelids open with toothpicks to look like you’re awake. In a personal-choice
work environment, you’ll be able to get the quality sleep you’ve been
seeking. A well-rested workforce will mean fewer workplace accidents, like
the time your boss asked you to tell her what you really truly thought of
her ideas, and you answered honestly.

Workplace Personal Activity #2 – gossiping.

If you think it’s fun to spread malicious rumors about your co-workers in
your spare time, imagine all the damage you could do if you had a full
workday for your rumor-mongering activities. After only a few days devoted
to spreading poisonous lies, there are sure to be fights breaking out in the
break room and nervous breakdowns in the executive suite. Sweet!

Workplace Personal Activity #1 – tunneling.

Sneaking out the back door is a good way to get out of the office, and
everyone appreciates the classic false fire alarm ploy to empty a workplace.
But given enough free time, there’s no reason you couldn’t dig a tunnel
under your workstation and escape whenever you choose.

Of course, when you have a job where nobody cares what you do, or don’t do,
who would ever want to leave?

I admit it! Sometimes I get so involved with the pains and problems of being
supervised that I ignore completely the terrible burden on those who do the
supervising. After all, our supervisors carry a lot of responsibility on
their bony shoulders. Plus, there’s the stress of knowing that no matter how
little work you actually do, you still will have to be front and center when
it comes time to receive the credit.

Fortunately, my lack of empathy for the managerial class is balanced by the
concern of an individual with impeccable credentials – Fred Pryor. I can’t
really tell you much about Fred because I don’t know anything about him. In
fact, Fred Pryor may not really exist. Fred could be a symbolic brand
character, like Betty Crocker or Mrs. Butterfield or Dick Cheney.

One thing for certain – whoever and wherever Fred Pryor is, he is hard at
work churning out seminars that cover subjects from “Guerrilla Marketing”
[who knew the great apes had so much purchasing power?] to “Managing
Multiple Priorities, Projects and Deadlines” Makes you wonder where’s the
seminar on Managing Multiple Personalities – that’s the one you need in your
office.

“How to Supervise People” is a Fred Pryor classic – a one day trainload of
training in which you will “learn effective leadership skills to maximize
employee performance.” And though Fred doesn’t say, let me add – that is
maximizing employee performance for employees who aren’t you.

In the beautifully crafted email I received on this event there are a whole
bunch of bullet points to highlight the knowledge you will gain in a
learning experience targeted for “new supervisors, senior supervisors,
mid-level supervisors and non-supervisors.” May I also suggest it will be
useful to those of us are not-now-and-never-will-be supervisors. You know
what they say in the IT department – before you can beat your enemy, you
have to understand your enemy. For example:

• How provide meaningful praise.

It is important that supervisors learn how to give praise, since we never
get much as employees. Start with a few simple expressions: “Good boy!”
“Smart pooch!” and “Roll over, and I’ll scratch your ears.”

• Supervise friends and former peers without losing their respect.

Managing your equals can make for sticky situations in the workplace. Use
the intimate knowledge gained when you worked side-by-side as colleagues. “I
really value our long friendship,” you might say. “I would certainly hate to
include in your performance report the time you put yoghurt in the gas tank
of the CEO’s Jaguar.”

• Establish supervisor-subordinate relationship boundaries that won’t be
misunderstood.

It does take skill to create that clear and convivial “Me boss. You dirt.”
feeling. Give your direct reports meaningless and demeaning tasks to
perform, like flossing your teeth for you, or performing arthroscopic
surgery on your knee. Your people may protest that they are not qualified,
but once they understand their position in the pecking order, they will be
much happier and so will you.

• Give constructive criticism without it being taken seriously – even by the
most sensitive employee.

Heaven knows employees are a sensitive bunch. How did it become such a “big
deal” to ask someone to work when their wife is having a baby, or when
they’re having the baby themselves? You can’t return the backbone to an
American workforce gone soft, so you might as well assuage their delicate
feelings. When you do have to give criticism, be constructive, as in “You’re
a complete idiot and a total waste of oxygen, but good job on living up to
my expectation that you are a moron.”

• Develop a keen sense of when to take corrective action or fire an employee
– and the legal implications of each.

Sad to say, a supervisor can no longer fire an employee just because you
don’t like the color of his tie. People don’t wear ties today, and if they
do, they’re probably bossing you around. If you do decide to terminate an
employee, make sure the offense is serious, like questioning your direct
order. If you want an employee to get you a cinnamon latte double fast, you
don’t need some malcontent asking whether you want a grande or a vente!

By the end of the seminar you will “gain confidence and respect from your
boss, peers and team.” Not bad for one day’s non-work. But missing a day’s
work is not really a problem any more, is it? You don’t have to work. You’re
a supervisor.

Welcome back, congregants. Before we begin today’s sermon, let us review last week’s lesson. You’ll remember our riveting exegisis on the stresses and strains of working in an office-environment. You will also recall the spasm of horror that flooded your cerebellum when I explained how your place of business could be invaded at any moment by Scary Spice, Mel B, and ex-N’Synch superstar, Joey Fatone, as they work their way across America, terrorizing gentle working folks like thee and me in their attempt to find the winning bunch of co-workers in the new, hit reality show, “The Singing Office.”

If you needed a better stimulus to start working from home, I don’t know what it could be?

Chances are, when it comes to working from home, you don’t need a stimulus package. As Elizabeth Garone describes the dream in “The Wall Street Journal,” you wake up on a work day to “roll out of bed and stumble over to your desk to check your phone and email messages, all the while in your pajamas.”

If the idea of working in your PJs and avoiding completely the daily hub-bub of bumbling bosses and cube mates is appealing to you, congratulations – you’re well on your way to erasing the Puritan work ethic that we’ve been trying to stifle since Day One. On the other hand, if you still question the possibility that the road to success runs from the bedroom to the living room couch where you spend the workday watching reruns of “Flip That House,” you’re not alone.

“It isn’t a an approach destined for success,” WSJ reporter Garone writes before quoting executive coach Clay Parsons of Alternative Futures who observes, “the people who succeed will be the ones who take it very seriously.”

Since the last time we took anything seriously was when they ran out of cruellers at the weekly staff meeting, the bubble bursters do provide tips on how to succeed at working at home. Unfortunately, many of these suggestions actually involve more work than we would face if we actually came into the office, but I have tried to bring a soupcon of common sense to the exercise. Grab your blanky and let’s begin.

1. Prepare yourself psychologically.

To continue with Mr Executive Spoilsport, Clay Parsons, “working from home is a job, not a vacation from responsibility.” As part of your preparation, Parsons suggests you create a “real office” at home and use it only for official work day activities. I agree. Don’t even venture into your “real office” unless you are going to be doing the important tasks, like napping, stealing office supplies, surfing the net, and gossiping.

2. Take yourself – and your job – seriously.

Since you don’t take your job seriously in the office, it’s asking a lot to expect you to take it seriously at home. Perhaps that’s why Parsons believes it is essential that you jettison your jimmies and dress for going to work, even if you furthest you’ll be going is to the bath tub for a nice pre-lunch soak. “How you dress does influence how you feel and how you interact with others,” he says and it’s true. You just won’t be the same person on that conference call when you know that everyone else on the call is wearing their workday best and you’re sitting at the kitchen table, naked as a jaybird.

3. Avoid isolation.

In the workplace, getting a moment to yourself is a rare privilege. When you’re home alone, you may miss the pleasures of being stuffed into a poorly ventilated, disease-ridden, spirit-killing morass of rickety office furniture, shoddy computers and cheap carpeting, exuding more deadly chemicals than a FEMA trailer.

The solution is to “address your social needs” by “meeting a friend for coffee, just as you would with officemates.” If you have no friends, be creative. Invite that hunky mailman in for frank discussion of your marketing plan. Chances are, he’s a lot smarter than your supervisor, and there’s no tiresome HR rules about sexual harassment, even when you’re playing post office.

4. Acknowledge your successes

Clearly reporter Garone has had little workplace experience, because she suggests you’ll miss all the office-wide praise and comraderie you’re never got in the first place. But I do agree you should celebrate. Starting the workday with a 6-pack of Blatz is a great way to acknowledge your accomplishments, even if you accomplish nothing more but going back to bed.

Trapped like rats in our cubical maze, our every move monitored, our every keystroke counted, no one could blame you if you harbor the dream of escaping the office to work from home. I mean, can’t you just see it? You’re free from snooping supervisors. Combative co-workers can’t bother you. And, of course, you have the most excellent advantage of being able to work in your bunny pajamas.

As wonderful as all these perks can be, they pale in significance when you realize that working at home means there is zero possibility that you will have to participate in the latest abuse to hit the workforce. I refer, of course, to the hit reality TV show – “The Singing Office.”

If you’re scared by Survivor, and know in your heart that one more episode of America’s Next Top Model will make you America’s Next Top Meltdown, The Singing Office on TLC is one reality horror show that will definitely have you cringing in your cubical.

The concept of the show is quite simple. Two militantly likeable hosts, Mel B and Joey Fatone, visit typical offices across America, looking for the best singers and dancers in the American workforce to compete for a top prize of $50,000.

In case you’ve been too busy working to pick up a copy of “People,” or have simply been living under a rock, Mel B, AKA Scary Spice, is an English celebrity icon, and Joey Fatone is a former member of everyone’s favorite boy band, N’ Sync. [Well, who did you expect? Dame Judi Dench and Bono?]

In the episode I watched, Joey descends on the Allen Edwards Hair Salon and Mel B. drops in on the corporate offices of 1-800-dentist. If you think your worklife gets crazy when a royal visit from corporate headquarters is expected, you won’t be surprised by the total pandemonium which occurs when these two semi-demi-stars start knocking on cubical doors, asking ordinary working stiffs to sing, dance and cavort for the camera.

Eventually, five of the lame and the deluded are captured by the interlopers. Their reward is a ticket to The Singing Office “boot camp,” a whacked out version of a team-building retreat, where the participants practice their song and dance routines, while demonstrating the kind of bickering and back-biting that has made Julie Chen a star, and turned us into a nation of voyeurs.

I can’t imagine how “The Singing Office” is doing in the ratings, but I do know it’s going to turn you into a nervous wreck. After years of meditation and medication you are finally able to sit at your desk and not go febrile when visited by your manager, your IT person, or one of the demons from hell, otherwise known as HR. But now that you also have to worry about a big pop-in by Mel B or Joey F, with camera crew in tow, I doubt you can make it until your 10 AM naptime.

Are you being paranoid? Probably, but remember that the entire office heard you Karaoke your way through “You Light Up My Life” at the office’s summer solstice party. No wonder you feel like there’s a target on your forehead.

Which brings us back to the one chance we have to escape The Singing Office – working from home.

According to Sue Shellenbarger’s “Work & Family” column in “The Wall Street Journal,” there are a number of web sites that specialize in “at home” positions. There’s Elance.com and oDesk.com, two sites where you can “slug it out” with workers all around the globe. [Think global competition is daunting? Don’t. Thanks to our most excellent politicians, our dollar is worth so little now that you may actually have a price advantage over your competitor in Bangalore.]

Working as a virtual assistant is one position that will definitely keep you out of the office. If you’ve spent your entire career bowing and scraping to a series of ineffectual executives, TeamDoubleclick.com offers you the choice of many slave labor positions. And since you’re working from home, you won’t have to deal with Ms. Big’s blow-up when you route her from Chicago to Kansas City by way of Slovenia.

Writing a workplace humor column is another gig you can do at home. I’d be happy to explain how you, too, can make Bob-size megabucks, but the doorbell just rang and look – it’s Joey and Mel B!

Now, what in the world do you think they want?

My wife and I used to commute together. It was economical. It was also scary.

Trapped in traffic in a mini-van, arguments that merely simmered at home, boiled over like a hot radiator. Driving to work was bad, but driving home was worse. The problem was all the repressed rage that had built up during the workday. Normal people find a healthy outlet for their frustration – they drink.

We drove. Crawling along in rush hour, the Missus and I didn’t have to hunt for a target on whom we could unload. We had each other. I know we had promised to love each other, until “death do us part,” but this was worse than death. This was commuting.

With this kind of experience on my resume, you will understand why I was so interested in an article titled “Would You Hire Your Husband?” in “The New York Times” of June 29th. According to reporter, Geraldine Fabrikant, women all across America are hiring their hubbies. As Ms. Fabrikant writes:

“At a time when high-profile women have suffered some shocks on Wall Street and when women in general still struggle for pay parity, a group of entrepreneurs have proved that women are comfortable not only with running their companies, but also having their husbands working for them.”

Being a no-profile person myself, I can’t profess to understand what is in the minds of these high-profile females, or why, with a world full of able, eligible candidates, they decide to look no further than the other side of their king-sized bed. [In your case, the hiring entrepreneur would have to recruit you from the den, where you were sleeping peacefully on the davenport under a blanket of empty beer cans, but you get the point.]

Hiring your husband is one thing. Managing him is another. According to the article, the job of successfully supervising your spouse requires the woman to “make a conscious effort to ensure that her mate is getting appropriate recognition.” Apparently, some men are so lacking in self-esteem that their sensitive egos get squished when delivering the kind of bowing and scraping most bosses require.

“Men and women are made differently,” explains Laura Colin, the author of “Family, Inc.,” a study of family businesses. “It is the testosterone thing – men are more compelled to dominate and get credit than women are.”

But is the problem of a man’s testosterone level on the level? Not all men have a need to dominate in every situation, though you do have to admit, it would be nice to have one area of your life in which you can rule the roost. It’s bad enough being a lackey at home. You don’t want the same position at work.

Actually, the whole power struggle between husband and wife in the workplace is a lot more complicated that the “Me Tarzan. You CEO. ” scenario described above. According to an unnamed Chicago therapist interviewed by Fabrikant, “a wife’s fear of making her husband feel emasculated in the workplace is a real consideration.”

Pure nonsense. If men were afraid of emasculation, we’d never get married.

Husbands, who work for their wives not only have to walk on eggs at work, but face the ridicule of their buddies when the workday is over. One female CEO describes the “Who’s the Boss?” situation as “uncomfortable” simply because other men made fun of it. “Oh, you can’t get a job except working for your wife,” went the teasing and the taunting when hubby stopped by for a mid-day attitude adjustment at the Kit Kat Klub.

I suppose this would be demeaning, but it’s certainly not the worse situation. How many of us are working at jobs we hate because our wives won’t hire us. They’re way too smart.

Often, what makes the wife-boss scenario work is a clear delineation of duties – at work and at home. Many of the husbands interviewed had certain areas of expertise, which freed the wife to do what she did best. Men who, at home, were tasked with taking out the garbage, were given specific critical duties at the office, like managing the executive coffee-run. This gave the wife time to do high-level thinking, like strategizing on whether she should replace her hubby with the hunky new hire in the shipping department.

Bottom line: if you don’t get along with your bosses, consider yourself lucky. You may have to take their garbage, but you’ll never have to take out their garbage.

Bad news, fellow worker-bees. Global warming may be raising temperatures at company branches in the North and South Pole, but back in here in headquarters, we’re freezing our buns off. Summer is here, and the air conditioners have been cranked up to “kill,” leaving many of us about as productive as a Popsicle.

Yes, it’s true. The colder you get, the less you accomplish. An extremely scientific study by Alan Hedge, an ergonomics professor at Cornell University, has determined that the number of keystrokes produced by a number of laboratory-rat workers at 68 degrees increased by 100% when the temperature was raised to 85 degrees. [Let’s hope your management doesn’t hear about this study, or the temp. in your office will immediately go from chill to bake to broil.]

The colder workers also made more mistakes, the Dr. Strangelove of ergonomics discovered. This is understandable. It’s definitely difficult hitting the right keys on your keyboard when you’re wearing mittens.

I learned about Professor Hedge’s breakthrough work in a recent “Career Couch” column by Phyllis Kokki in “The New York Times.” According to Kokki, there are a multitude of reasons why our workplace summer of love quickly becomes a summer of complaining.

“The problem in the way people experience temperature depends on a range of factors,” reports the reporter, “including body type, clothing, activity level and proximity to other people and to vents, computers, and windows – as well as individual preferences and expectations.”

The part about “activity level” is especially poignant, since our principle goal in the workplace is to experience as little activity as possible. Some of us have even started to study meditation and mind control to learn the ancient secrets of “sitting quietly,” leaving our minds vacant for enlightenment, or for happy hour at the Kit Kat Klub, whichever comes first.

Another key factor in how we experience cold is less philosophy and more physiology. “The muscles of the body generate about a third of its heat,” Professor Hedge explains, “and women tend to have less muscle mass than men.” [Hey, the professor said it, not me. If you women are going to prove this theory wrong by beating someone to a pulp, Cornell is that way!]

Not all of the explanations for our long, cold summer make as much sense as a lack of activity or our miniscule musculature. Another professor, Gail S. Brager, of the architecture department at the University of California, Berkeley, suggests that our summer of suffering stems from a “lack of control.”

“Think about how much more control you have over your comfort at home,” opines the professor. “You can open windows, turn on fans, heaters or air-conditioners, change clothes or move to a different room. At most offices, you lose that control. Someone else is pushing the button.”

Professor Brager is right about losing control, but she is dead wrong if she thinks that it affects our behavior. At this point, we’re so used to having no control over our lives, that a simple management decision to turn our workplace into a meat locker is hardly a matter we’d dispute, or even notice. I don’t know about where you work, but I haven’t pushed a button in years. [Come to think of it, last time I did push a button, two HR drones and an IT nerd burst into my cube and took my button away.]

The clothing you wear – or don’t wear – also makes a difference. Remember Professor Hedge, the keystroke king? He also reports that your ankles are particularly vulnerable to cold. For those of us who have put on adequate adipose to turn our ankles into “cankles,” the problem is even more severe.

For this exact reason, some of you may consider bringing a blanket to work, which you could drape over your shoulders, letting the warm wool dangle over your well-chilled legs, frozen ankles, and icy feet. Comfy as this may sound, career-wise, it’s better to freeze. There’s something about sitting in the conference room looking like Whistler’s mother that may suggest to management that you are not the dynamic, energetic, go-getter they will want around next winter. And let’s face it – nothing is more chilling than the idea of unemployment.

Why not suggest your company turns off the air conditioner and replaces your Aeron chair with a block of ice? That will keep your best feature nice and cool, and when happy hour comes around, you’ll have plenty of ice.

OK, fatty. Put down that jelly donut and step away from the conference table. I don’t care if you are a big boss or a total loss, if I see powdered sugar on your chin, I’m going to do something drastic, like call the HR department and report you for making unwanted advances on a box of Entenmann's.

Tough love? Perhaps, but it’s only fair to warn you. You may think no one has noticed the extra inches you’ve added to your waistline since the New Year. You may believe that no notices the junk in your trunk, but you’re wrong.

Management has noticed, and they’re out do something about it. Unfortunately, it’s the kind of thing that management does best – fire people for trivial reasons. In this case, the reason is fat.

“Waistlines Expand Into a Workplace Issue” is the headline on Kelley Holland’s “Under New Management” column in the June 22 issue of “The New York Times.” And while being caught in the computer closet with a bag full of chocolate croissants is not yet a firing issue, those of us who have played the workplace game of hide and seek with downsizers and cost cutters can smell a “fireable offense” a mile away.

It could be that your managers are overwrought at overweight employees because the company knows that it is healthier to be Paris Hilton thin than Bubba the Love Sponge fat. It could be, but it ain’t. It’s money that drives your managers to drive you in anorexia. “Obesity costs companies $45 billion a year,” according to reporter Holland who cites research by the Conference Board and RTI International, a research institution. [These statistics would probably be different if the research had been conducted by the Sara Lee Institute, but what can you do?]

The cause of these costs is not, as you’d expect, the price companies pay for adding steel reinforcements to the seats of Aeron chairs, or widening cubical doorways to insure egress to the rotund. Turns out fat people may be fun to be around, but they are expensive to have on your health plan.

“Obesity is a more powerful trigger for chronic health problems than either smoking or heavy drinking,” economists at the RAND Corporation have determined. Their research also reveals that fatties miss work more frequently and “tend to be loss mobile on the job than their thinner counterparts.”

This last barb could be explained by the really obvious fact that fat people are more likely to be stuck in their desk chairs. They’d like to jump up and run across the office to help a supervisor in distress, but they’re so wedged in that they can’t reach escape velocity. Fatter people could also be smarter. They know that volunteering in an office environment brings many more risks than rewards. Plus, they may not want to leave the three hundred bags of M&Ms they have stashed in their bottom desk drawer.

Sadly, what is riling up the big thinkers in corporate America is not the prejudice that is being unleashed on those of us in the chubby minority, but the fact that managers are not speaking up loudly to promote the cult of thinness.

The experts want our managers to operate like the Japanese, where a recent Federal law mandates that companies measure the circumference of their employers to insure that they are within national guidelines. “Those exceeding government limits -- 33.5 inches for men and 35.4 inches for women -- will be given dieting guidance if after three months they do not lose weight,” reports “The Huffington Post.”

Here, in America, some companies are taking a less Orwellian approach and actually offering cash incentives to employees who start slimming. Giving discounts and rebates on gym memberships are other ways enlightened companies try to lighten up the staff. Some even build gyms inside the workplace, taking over office real estate that once housed corporate vice presidents, and replacing the dumb bells with bar bells.

Best of all, a few company officials are finally beginning to understand that being overweight does not represent moral weakness, but is, instead, a disease. And about time. After all, we’ve accepted the pathology of the loonies who manage us, with their toxic demands to come to work early and stay late, not to mention their life-threatening desire to participate in meaningless “mission statements.”

They’ve taken away our dignity. The least they could do is leave us our donuts.